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Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

punchbowl.news

221–230 of 443 posts

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#221

I'm fine with this as long as they include the tariff in the listed price. I'm worried businesses are going to use tariffs as an excuse to have a fake list price, then hit you with massive hidden fees at the point of sale. Some sectors have been doing this for years - "service fees" at restaurants, "regulatory response fees" in the telecom industry, all sorts of nonsense in event ticketing. Physical goods have mostly…

A few days ago I tried ordering a bottle cage for my bike from the US. The price was 22.95€. At the checkout, they added a "Tariff Recovery fee" of 1.84€. On top of that, they charged 60.25€ for shipping. The grand total was 80.04€.

I stopped trying to buy stuff from the US, because there's always a ton of added costs

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These generally aren't taxes. These are conservative business owners complaining about having to pay a living wage rather than a poverty wage. When the rent goes up, the prices change. When insurance goes up, prices change. When labor costs go up it's a "service charge"? That's garbage, just set your prices accordingly.

Tariffs are not labor costs.

This thread is about "service fees" at restaraunts.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#223
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. I’d take it a step further and say that sales tax should be included when you are logged in and it can be anticipated, like is the case in most other countries.

Sales tax cannot be per-calculated, since it is charged on the total sale. Rounding errors will get you. (when I worked fast food 30 years ago one value meal was $3.18, but two were $6.27) The government pays attention to this type of thing and they will get you for those pennies. (remember there are many governments, it is possibly all the local governments in question would decide not to pay attention, but that doe…

> Sales tax cannot be per-calculated, since it is charged on the total sale.

Most of the developed world pre-calculates sales tax.

If McDonalds charges you $10.32 in Australia, the government gets $0.84(8181812...) of it. Rounding isn't an issue because you don't write a check for each individual $0.84(8181812...), you pay them the aggregate amount on a regular basis.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A trade deficit is not inherently unhealthy Then even without that, your 6 biggest companies are Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta. Then the seventh is private equity. Then it's back to Alphabet again, and Broadcom. The trade deficit calculation excludes services, including but not limited to: software So even with countries where you supposedly have trade deficits you're not even sure that you really…

[flagged]

Drop your little red hat for some glasses and read the discussion again.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#225
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can blame Trump but in the US, we’re all to blame here. Blaming somebody who’s not me just make it easier to feel good about myself and like I’m less of the problem. I mean call them the Democrats tariffs. 2024 was a gift-wrapped election victory and the Democrats (shockingly) bungled it in staggeringly impressive fashion.

As an independent, let me just say: fuck that. Trump and his voters are to blame.

All the democrats who ran with a candidate who couldn't convince other independents to vote for Harris, or convince all the potential voters who stays home to come vote are also to blame.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sales tax cannot be per-calculated, since it is charged on the total sale. Rounding errors will get you. (when I worked fast food 30 years ago one value meal was $3.18, but two were $6.27) The government pays attention to this type of thing and they will get you for those pennies. (remember there are many governments, it is possibly all the local governments in question would decide not to pay attention, but that doe…

Sure it can. It works perfectly fine in many other countries.

There's a slight difference between having one tax rate at the country level and having numerous differing state and local sales tax rates. You don't even know what to charge the customer until you know their exact location.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#228

"This is hostile and political." --The President. No, Really. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/29/white-house-blasts-amazon-ov...

Technically Karoline Leavitt said it.

thank you for correcting me. the point still stands: it's really weird the way the government uses "political" as a pejorative when everything they do is, by definition, political. it smacks of doublethink.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only tariff Amazon needs to display is the one they need to collect. You are right that more tariffs might've been applied along the way - but it's not relevant for what Amazon has to do.

Does Amazon collect any tariffs at all? That would be unusual for a retailer. Unless they're registered as an importer? I could see that as a service they might provide to certain sellers, just like warehousing and other logistics. But generally, they will receive their merchandise from a corporate entity who paid the tariff already.

Amazon AGL handles direct to warehouse shipping for importers. Amazon won’t be the importer of record for you (the IOR is the one responsible for making sure tariffs are paid) but since they’re the ones handling the goods at the port, they need all the documentation from the IOR which will include tariffs paid.

It doesn’t apply to parts imported and assembled in the US before going to the Amazon fulfillment warehouses, but it does work for their direct to warehouse imports.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#230

Amazon is the archetype of a destructive business. It’s a business that depends completely on flooding the country with cheap chinese crap, delivered overnight by desperate recent immigrants. The archetype of the hollowing out of america championed by the Reagan/Bush GOP.

This line of thinking is what people are pushing to justify the insane tarriff policy. Amazon is evil, slave labor, they tarriff us, etc. I'm not saying these things aren't true. However, my problem with this argument is that it frames the consumer as a victim to Amazon and to the 'hollowing out of America'. Consumers have a choice - they love using Amazon and importing cheap goods. Where is the self-reflection?

> I'm not saying these things aren't true

But it still seems like you’re disagreeing with my conclusion?

Yes, consumers love cheap goods. And businesses love to make short term profits even if it means selling out the future by gutting American companies and turning them into mere distributors for Chinese companies. That’s why you need the government to intervene to change peoples’ behaviors.

There is a reason we tax cigarettes and other things that are bad for us. We do it to change people’s behaviors, to get them to consume less of the bad thing. Yes, like with tariffs, it makes the bad thing more expensive. That’s the whole point! Amazon is a bad company with a bad business model, and I don’t actually care who is the one who takes them out.

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